1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a portable telephone set and a communication inquiring method for a portable telephone set having both of a telephone answering machine service function for performing termination notification of a telephone answering machine call, transmission of stored communication contents and so forth and a mail service function for performing termination notification of a mail, transmission of contents of a mail prepared for distribution and so forth.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, for example, in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2000-197131, a portable telephone set is disclosed which can detect a character string corresponding to a telephone number or a mail address in a received character message and originate a telephone call or prepare and transmit a replying message through simple successive operations of a key inputting section so as to easily perform an inquiring process as to a telephone answering service call and an inquiring process as to a mail by operating an operation section.
Further, in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2001-257762, a portable telephone set is disclosed wherein several functions which are selection objects are divided into logical hierarchies so that a plurality of functions can be selected efficiently, and operation keys are matched with the functions so that a function can be selected easily and intuitively.
Furthermore, in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2000-341432, a composite communication apparatus is disclosed wherein reception of a facsimile, reception of a telephone answering service call and reception of an electronic mail can be affirmed by the communication apparatus by itself.
Where the proposals disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2000-197131 and No. 2001-257762 are used, from a very common viewpoint of simplification of operation, they individually achieve convenience in their own way.
However, in recent years, a portable telephone set has been popularized which is ready for both services of a telephone answering service for performing issuing of a termination notification of a telephone answering service call and transmission of communication contents stored in a memory of a server and a mail service for performing issuing of a termination notification of a mail and transmission of contents of a mail prepared for distribution. However, from the documents mentioned above, a special hint cannot be obtained from a view point that simplification of operation of inquiry as to the services described above is intended to improve the convenience to the subscriber of the portable telephone set.
Meanwhile, in the apparatus disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2000-341432, reception of a facsimile, reception of a telephone answering service call and reception of an electronic mail can be affirmed by use of a single apparatus. Therefore, simplification in operation of inquiry as to the communication services can be achieved. However, in the proposal disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2000-341432, since a composite communication apparatus for exclusive use as proposed is required, it is hard to say that sufficient convenience to common users of the portable telephone set is provided.
As well known in the art, the user of a portable telephone set often affirms whether or not a telephone answering service call or a mail is terminated after it has been out of a range for a considerably long period of time or voice communication has continued for a very long period of time. In this case, conventionally an inquiring operation as to a telephone answering service and an inquiring operation as to a mail service have been obliged to perform separately from each other.
FIGS. 5(A) and 5(B) are flowcharts illustrating operation according to such a conventional communication inquiring method as just described. Particularly, FIG. 5(A) is a flow chart illustrating telephone answering service inquiring action. Referring to FIG. 5(A), if a user performs a telephone answering service inquiring operation (step S511), then the telephone answering service inquiring action is executed with a predetermined protocol by the portable telephone set (step S512), and the inquiry is ended immediately (step S513).
FIG. 5(B) is a flow chart illustrating action of inquiry as to whether or not a mail regarding a mail service (in this example, a packet mail) is terminated, and the process of FIG. 5(B) is executed independently of the telephone answering service inquiring action of FIG. 5(A). Referring to FIG. 5(B), if a user performs a packet mail inquiring operation (step S521), then the portable telephone set first enters a mode of packet communication (step S522). Then, inquiring action is executed in accordance with a protocol of packet mail inquiry (step S523), and the inquiry is ended immediately (step S524). This similarly applies to the apparatus disclosed in the prior art documents mentioned hereinabove although they do not specifically disclose this by way of illustration. The prior art documents do not include an idea at all that the two inquiring operations are integrated to improve the convenience in use.